{"id":734492,"date":"2026-06-13T16:10:11","date_gmt":"2026-06-13T16:10:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/734492\/"},"modified":"2026-06-13T16:10:11","modified_gmt":"2026-06-13T16:10:11","slug":"jacques-villeneuve-explains-why-george-russell-has-mercedes-edge-over-kimi-antonelli-in-barcelona","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/734492\/","title":{"rendered":"Jacques Villeneuve explains why George Russell has Mercedes edge over Kimi Antonelli in Barcelona"},"content":{"rendered":"

1997 Formula 1 champion Jacques Villeneuve<\/a> believes George Russell’s “smoother” driving style gives him an upper hand over his Mercedes<\/a> team-mate Kimi Antonelli at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya.\u00a0<\/p>\n

As the grid prepares for the seventh round of the 2026 season, the intra-team dynamic at Mercedes continues to be under scrutiny from fans and the media. While Russell was a clear\u00a0favourite heading into the season, Antonelli has surprised many with five consecutive wins in China, Japan, Miami, Canada and Monaco.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Speaking to Sky Sports F1 after the third and final practice session in Barcelona, Villeneuve provided a technical breakdown to explain why the Spanish venue plays to Russell’s strengths.<\/p>\n

“He will be happy but I think he knew coming here that this track would suit his driving style a little bit better than his team-mate,” the former F1 driver said.<\/p>\n

“So he’s taking advantage of it and pushing. But the track is slippery, and if you don’t have the perfect set-up, you can’t drive around it.\u00a0It’s very difficult and you need to be precise.”<\/p>\n

He added: “Antonelli’s driving style suits stop-and-go tracks.<\/p>\n

“He goes very deep into the corner, turns in early, pivots early the car and gets on the gas, the electric part of the engine pulls him out and he runs a super-soft rear end. That normally means a lot of understeer and that doesn’t work on this track.<\/p>\n

\"George <\/p>\n

George Russell, Mercedes, Andrea Kimi Antonelli, Mercedes<\/p>\n

Photo by: Sam Bloxham \/ LAT Images via Getty Images<\/p>\n

“This track is very understeery but, at the same time, the rear snaps.\u00a0Russell has a smoother driving style and it works here.”<\/p>\n

So far this weekend, Russell topped the timesheets in the first and third practice sessions, while\u00a0he put in the second-fastest time in the second practice session.<\/p>\n

Prior to the Barcelona-Catalunya Grand Prix, Antonelli leads the drivers’ championship by 66 points over seven-time champion Lewis Hamilton<\/a> in second. Russell slipped to third in the standings after the Monaco Grand Prix and now sits two points behind his former team-mate.<\/p>\n

The Barcelona-Catalunya Grand Prix will take place at 3pm local time (2pm UK time) on Sunday 14 June.<\/p>\n

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– The Motorsport.com Team<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"1997 Formula 1 champion Jacques Villeneuve believes George Russell’s “smoother” driving style gives him an upper hand over…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":734493,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[441],"tags":[3032,262910,49,48,578,262911,576,577,3024,13138,264110,1881,82,4962],"class_list":["post-734492","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-formula-1","tag-andrea-kimi-antonelli","tag-barcelona-catalunya-gp","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-f1","tag-f1-barcelona-catalunya-grand-prix","tag-formula-1","tag-formula1","tag-george-russell","tag-jacques-villeneuve","tag-jacques-villeneuve-explains-why-george-russell-has-mercedes-edge-over-kimi-antonelli-in-barcelona","tag-mercedes","tag-sports","tag-trendingteam"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/734492","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=734492"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/734492\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/734493"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=734492"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=734492"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=734492"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}